1. Field
Various embodiments described herein relate generally to systems, methods, and devices for use in biasing and driving high voltage semiconductor devices using only low breakdown voltage transistors.
2. Description of Related Art
In applications where high voltage semiconductor devices operating in high voltage conditions are controlled, high breakdown voltage transistors are typically used in corresponding control circuitry. For example, in traditional gallium nitride (GaN) power management applications, transistors such as laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS), bipolar or high voltage metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) can be utilized to control the GaN devices operating in high voltage conditions. Since these control transistors typically have poor figure of merit (FOM), compared to the FOM of the GaN devices, which can thereby, for example, limit the operating frequencies of the GaN devices, the overall circuit (e.g. power management) can be limited in performance by the large, high voltage control transistors which can be difficult to charge and discharge quickly (e.g. their FOM is too high) and therefore the benefit of using the GaN devices can be substantially reduced. In such applications where high voltage devices (e.g. GaN) are controlled, it can be desirable to tightly control timing of the ON state of the high voltage devices, so as to, for example, reduce or eliminate overlap time of the high voltage devices in the ON state.